UnmannedCanada 2017

This Year: Toronto

Just back from this years UnmannedCanada 2017, Unmanned Systems Canada’s annual Technical and Exhibitor Conference, held in Toronto.

2017 is a pivitol year for UAS in Canada. With the recently released Proposed Regulations for UAVs in Canada, this event was another opportunity to discuss the key issues in the proposed regulations, with the regulator directly. More on that later.

First, some of the highlights…

It was a great opportunity to meet a number of my small operator collegues in person, many of whom I had met via various online communities related to SFOCs and Flying drones. It was great to put faces and voices to the names that I’d connected with online, in the various facbook groups or at various events around Canada.

Once again this year, USC organized several streams of presentations that covered a wide range of topics of interest to the industry. These covered the Proposed UAV Regulations, Small Operators, Automated Vehicle Operations, Drone Countermeasures, as well as a Legal Panel on relevent Law to UAV operators and Privacy.

USC also organized a Small Operator stream, covering topics from marketing to safety, update on the Proposed UAV Reguations as well as how to develop your Flight Procedures.

Minister Brad Duguid. Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Brendan Shulman, DJI’s VP of Legal Affairs, and Aeryon Co-Founder, were all in attendance offering their perspectives on this emerging industry.

Transport Canada had a large presence, with a good proportion of the leadership of the newly created UAS Task force present. They were very visible thoughout the whole conference, sitting in on numerous sessions, having multiple conversations with varous industry representatives and individual companies and lots of engagement with small operators.

There was a large and vibrant tech showcase in the exhibit hall.

Technical content of the presentations was very high as we expect for a conference of this calibre, one of the premiere UAS conferences in Canada.

Next year: Vancouver

Next year the conference is being held in Vancovuer , and as the pace of change in the Canadian UAV market looks unlikely to slow down over the next year, I plan to be there!

About the author ckmmphoto

From my first 35mm camera that I started with, to the current Nikons and video cameras and UAVs I use today, I've been moved to capture a moment in time in the world around me, both for my clients and for my personal projects.
I'm passionate about capturing people at their best, objects in motion moving both fast and slow.